TitleNews Online Archive

TitleNews Online Archive

Is There Life After 40?

March 11, 2014

hal Systems is celebrating its 40th year in operation on April 12. Best known for its flagship product, the halFILE Title Plant Manager, hal Systems has served over 450 title-industry related customers throughout the United States. Greg Hahn, president, said the company’s staying power is “the result of hard-working, creative employees, a determination to maintain world class customer support, and a lot of loyal clients. When we have our HUG (halFILE Users Group) Conference in October, it will be a real celebration for everyone there.”

While their product line is mature, the software development team has a track record of keeping on the front edge of technology changes. hal Systems first offered their web-based product, e.halFILE, in 1999, and has been an early adopter of Microsoft platforms throughout their history.

“We don’t like to tell our customers that they are locked into version X of SQL Server or that we don’t support Window 8,” said Tom Hokanson, senior vice president of software development. “Some product design decisions we made years ago have really paid off in terms of adaptability and scalability.”

This scalability is clearly shown with CountyRecords.com, a document repository of records from over 120 counties which is now approaching 200 million images. Hahn believes life really does begin at 40.

“Our latest version, halFILE 4.0, is Microsoft .NET-based, which gives us a stable platform with some great leaps in speed and performance, plus a lot of new, great features based on requests from our customer base.”

halFILE Cloud options are also offered to customers looking to reduce costs of in-house hardware and support. Even with all their product offerings, Hokanson feels hal’s history of customer support is the key to their longevity.

“We’re proud of our track record of serving our customers,” he said. “We’ve built long-lasting relationships that are very rewarding and, right now, we are in the process of building new relationships with clients we just signed up this year.”

hal Systems maintains operational offices in Dallas and Austin with a sales office in Denver. The company started in 1974 as a software developer of Oil & Gas Accounting Software. The first version of the halFILE Title Plant Manager was released in 1992.